Open Innovation is invaluable for modern day Nepal

• “If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.”

These lines of Peter F. Drucker, an Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author would probably best describe the need for innovation for the Nepalese market.

For long we have been borrowing ideas from the American and European markets. We try to imitate the successful business model without analyzing their relevance to our context. We all can witness the increasing number of ‘kirana pasals’ imitating the exact same business model of other similar Kirana Pasals. Replicating successful business ideas are not the ultimate solution for sustaining in the market.  Innovative ideas for the Nepalese market could best cater to our interest in succeeding in this complex Nepalese Market. For that, the trend of copying-pasting should come to an end.

Great innovative ideas cannot be created in a vacuum. Developed countries have been spending the gargantuan amount of budget for innovation projects.  They allocate Research and Development budget for locating problems and generating crafty ideas to address those pinpointed problems. On the contrary, our case is different and so is our market. What works best for their market may not work for ours. Our market is different in every aspect, our lifestyle, socio-cultural aspect, political scenarios, and our work culture makes us unique from other countries.  For our unique market, innovating can be one of the most pivotal tools to stay relevant to the market’s needs. We need unique ideas, we need tailored ideas and on top of that we need innovative ideas, for which the strategy, Open Innovation, could be the best fit.

The concept of Open Innovation simply refers to ideas that freely flow from employees, partners, suppliers and other stakeholders. According to Henery Chesbrough, “Open Innovation is the use of purposive inflow and outflow of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation and expand the market for external use of innovation respectively.” In this informative age, knowledge, and information is widely distributed and no matter how big or capable the company is, companies can reap unmatched benefits out of open innovation technique. It assists an institution to acquire ideas out of freely flowing knowledge all over because this process is the more distributed, more participatory, more decentralized approach to innovation.

As the Open innovation process takes into considerations both internal and external ideas of the company and chooses both external and internal paths to the market; it is highly likely that firms would be able to generate invaluable ideas that perfectly blend with the market’s need. Apart from this, the process of open innovation is significant for following very reasons:

• # It reduces the risk of failure
• # There is a high probability of Market acceptance of ideas as it is based on market consensus
• # This results in Innovation/product development as per market requirement
• # This results in Innovating old products and services
• # Open innovation process will Build a community and get in touch with customers and fans by helping to learn what your community wants and then give it to them
• # Staying ahead of the competition
• # It helps generate a better quality of ideas
• # It reduces R&D cost

Our market is very fragile yet evolving, which keeps on altering every now and then. We need an interactive and collaborative innovation process with external partners to be aware of the changing market. Interaction with different stakeholders seeds any institution with their much-needed opinions and criticisms that enables an institution to gain a clear picture and vision regarding what the market needs. What every institution needs to remember is; when it comes to creativity, many heads can be better than one. Open innovation provides an open platform to grow globally as the process acknowledges the ideas coming through the open-source for innovation and interaction of people.

This complex world requires change, knowledge, and innovation. Sharing of knowledge, expertise, and ideas with partners by sharing risk and sharing reward is immensely invaluable to thrive in the innovation-led-market. To operate a business in a market like Nepal, open innovation could result in a more profitable way to innovate, reduce cost, accelerate time to market, increase differentiation in the market and create new revenue streams for the company. Open innovation is not an alternative to create a better market; it is now an essence towards a prosperous business market.

“Great people and ideas are evenly distributed, both inside and outside of organizations. They are also increasingly connected, so the open innovation is the smart strategy for a new networked world.”

It is with this same belief, Clock b Business Innovations is continually working to facilitate innovation events and programs with an aim to create platforms where market stakeholders could collaborate for innovation. Through our programs, we wish to provide unprecedented platforms to all businesses and professionals for collaborating to design ideas that address the market and industrial complexities.

Contributor: Roshani Chand

Edited by Clock b Business Innovations